News Releases

  • Bombing of Yugoslavia: One Year Later

    JAN HARTSOUGH Shortly after the bombing of Yugoslavia started a year ago today, Hartsough traveled to the Balkans with a social-change organization called Crabgrass. She also attended the Women in Black international conference in October 1999 in Montenegro. She said today: “A police force that can establish law and justice in Kosovo still has not been established. I’m concerned about the prospects of another outbreak of war in the Balkans, this time in Montenegro.” More Information JEREMY SCAHILL Pacifica Radio’s “Democracy Now” program. He reported from Yugoslavia during the bombing last spring. Today he said: “One year after the initiation…


  • While Senate Holds DOE Hearing Today, Nuclear Victims Blast Narrow Scope

    WASHINGTON — While the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee holds a hearing today to focus on health and safety issues at two Department of Energy atomic plants, representatives of workers and others subjected to radiation exposure say that the Senate panel is dodging a wide array of serious problems at DOE nuclear facilities across the country. Reporters and producers are invited to directly contact the following people for interviews: TRISHA PRITIKIN The daughter of nuclear workers at the Hanford facility near Richland, Wash., Pritikin has serious thyroid ills. Both her parents died of cancer. “My brother died shortly after birth, in…


  • Foreign Policy Issues: India, Taiwan and Russia

    NEIL TANGRI Field director for the Multinationals Resource Center, Tangri has worked in India on development issues. He said today: “The past 10 years have seen dramatic changes in the Indian economy. Frustrated by corruption and a sense of losing the economic race to China and the ‘tiger’ economies, Indian politicians on both the right and left have thrown their support behind economic reform policies of privatization, deregulation, and increased international commerce. These policies have buoyed the fortunes of the wealthy to an unprecedented degree, but also increased poverty. Clinton’s trip to India will attempt to ensure a firm U.S.…


  • “New Economy” or Stock Bubble?

    As the stock market continues to rise, many analysts are proclaiming a “New Economy.” They argue that computer technologies have created a market not bound by the physical constraints of the old industrial economy. But are we becoming increasingly unprepared for a downturn? Among the critics of the New Economy available for interviews are: ELLEN FRANK Professor of economics at Emmanuel College in Boston, Frank said today: “Market economies have long periods of growth and then recessions. Since World War II, we’ve had an infrastructure in place to deal with a recession: full employment budgeting, a welfare system, food stamps…


  • Congressional Commission Slams IMF; Analysts Available for Interviews

    The new report from the International Financial Institutions Advisory Commission, created by Congress in 1998, is adding to calls for drastic reform of the International Monetary Fund. The “Meltzer Commission” report urges full cancellation of the debts owed by poor countries to the IMF and the World Bank as well as significant reduction of the role of these institutions. Congressional hearings on these issues begin this week. The following analysts are available for interviews: MARIE CLARKE Co-director of the Quixote Center, Clarke said: “A Congressional Commission with members across the political spectrum came together with the common message of 100…


  • Beyond “Super Tuesday”

    LEONARD WILLIAMS Professor of political science at Manchester College and co-author of the recent Campaigns and Elections article “‘Moderates Win’ and Other Political Myths,” Williams said today: “In part the election fits the standard scenario of the more established candidates winning after a bit of trouble. But up to this point in the campaign there’s been more of a progressive ideological center of gravity than in years. There’s an emphasis on promoting education, protecting Social Security, having a Patients Bill of Rights and campaign finance reform. If you’d said all these things 10 years ago, you’d be laughed off the…


  • Pinochet’s Release

    JOYCE HORMAN Joyce Horman is the widow of Charles Horman. Along with another U.S. citizen, Frank Teruggi, he was detained and murdered in September 1973 in the days following Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s bloody military coup backed by the U.S. government. She has worked to uncover the facts about his murder for more than 26 years. Today she said: “With this decision to allow Pinochet to go to Chile rather than face justice in Spain, it becomes even more important to press the U.S. intelligence agencies to release the remaining documents they have on the cases of Charles Horman and Frank…


  • Religion and Politics

    REV. JIM WALLIS Editor-in-chief of Sojourners magazine, Rev. Wallis said: “Al Gore and George W. Bush have talked about how much Jesus influenced them. The question has been whether that’s an appropriate thing for a candidate to talk about. It is very appropriate for a candidate to speak of their personal faith — if they say what it means in relation to public policy issues. So what would Jesus say about poverty in the midst of prosperity? What would Jesus say about 44 million Americans without health insurance?…. Talking about whether Bush’s speech at Bob Jones University will affect how…


  • Bradley and McCain: Insurgents?

    MATTHEW ROTHSCHILD Editor of The Progressive, Rothschild said: “Bradley doesn’t represent a real alternative to Gore or McCain or Bush. He supports the death penalty. He favors tougher sanctions on Iraq. Along with Gore, he has been a leading proponent of NAFTA and the World Trade Organization; and he, like Gore, has carried water for the pharmaceutical companies. Bradley’s health plan is a far cry from universal care, and he leaves the insurance companies firmly in command. He voted for aiding the contras in 1986. Bradley — like Gore, McCain and Bush — is for bloated Pentagon spending and has…


  • Scientist’s Resignation Raises Questions About Nuclear Policy

    A month ago, Andreas Toupadakis held a classified position at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. But he resigned his post, voicing criticisms of U.S. nuclear policy. Interviews are available with Dr. Toupadakis and other nuclear policy analysts: ANDREAS TOUPADAKIS Prior to joining the staff at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s “Stockpile Stewardship” program on nuclear weapons, Toupadakis worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Shortly after resigning, he issued an open letter which reads in part: “I have seen how easy it is for nuclear contamination to occur, and how hard it is to clean it up…. Do nations possess nuclear, chemical…


  • Interviews Available: Bush at the UN

    JAMES PAUL Paul is executive director of the Global Policy Forum, which monitors policy-making at the UN. More Information PHYLLIS BENNIS A fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, Bennis is author of the book Before and After: U.S. Foreign Policy and the September 11th Crisis and the recent article “Back to the UN.” She…

  • * Wesley Clark * Arafat

    PETER HART Hart, who works with the media watch group FAIR, said today: “A review of his statements before, during and after the war reveals that Clark has taken a range of positions — from expressing doubts about diplomatic and military strategies early on, to celebrating the U.S. ‘victory.’” More Information ZOLTAN GROSSMAN Grossman is…

  • Behind Bush’s Coal “Clear Skies” Photo-Op in Michigan

    President Bush is visiting the Detroit Edison coal-burning power plant in Monroe, Mich., this afternoon to promote his air pollution plan called the “Clear Skies Initiative.” [See: abcnews.go.com/wire/Politics/ap20030915_1081.html] The administration is being criticized by public health, environmental, labor and public interest leaders for recent EPA changes to the Clean Air Act. Among those available for…

  • * Arafat in Exile? * WTO in Cancun

    ADAM SHAPIRO Shapiro is an activist and organizer with the International Solidarity Movement based in Washington, D.C. In March, 2002 he entered Yasser Arafat’s presidential compound escorting an ambulance during the Israeli siege of Ramallah and ended up trapped inside under attack with President Arafat and over 300 men by Israeli forces. Shapiro spent the…

  • “The Other 9/11” — This Sept. 11 Marks 30-Year Anniversary of Coup in Chile

    On Sept. 11, 1973, a U.S.-backed coup brought down the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende in Chile. The coup began a repressive dictatorship under Gen. Augusto Pinochet that lasted until the end of the 1980s. The following Chileans, living in Northern California, are available for interviews: HECTOR SALGADO A few days after the military…

  • * 9/11 First Responders * Administration Deceptions, Then and Now

    MEG BARTLETT Bartlett is founder of the group Ground Zero for Peace — First Responders Against War. As an emergency medical technician, she responded to 9/11. She said today: “We do not want our experiences to propagate further violence. No one should have to see what I’ve seen. But people around the world have seen…

  • What Did the EPA Know and When Did It Know It?

    JOEL KUPFERMAN Kupferman is the executive director of the New York Environmental Law and Justice Project. He said today: “On September 19, 2001, one day after the EPA declared that the ‘air was safe to breathe,’ we took samples in lower Manhattan and sent them to two respected labs — the results came back with…

  • 9/11 and Aftermath: Tragedy and Deception * Relatives of Sept. 11 Victims * Military Families

    DAVID POTORTI Potorti is the primary author of the new book September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows: Turning Our Grief into Action for Peace. His brother was killed in the World Trade Center. He said today: “With the worst kind of cynicism, George W. Bush continues the hallucinatory link of Iraq to the deaths of…

  • Senior EPA Specialists Comment Today on Deletions of Warnings About 9/11 Toxins

    Two senior specialists with the federal Environmental Protection Agency commented Thursday on emerging information about the White House role in early press releases from the EPA about potential health hazards in lower Manhattan after the 9/11 attacks. The comments, by Cate Jenkins and Hugh Kaufman, were released by the Institute for Public Accuracy on Sept.…

  • Electricity and Deregulation: More Corporate Scams?

    WENONAH HAUTER TYSON SLOCUM Hauter is director of Public Citizen’s Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program; Slocum is research director for the group. Hauter said today: “The House blackout hearings today and tomorrow will be nothing more than a high-wire act promoting transmission policies benefiting Enron-esque power marketers at the expense of consumers. That’s because…

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